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nurturing thursdays: feeling good…

Have you ever contemplated how great it is to…feel good? To have that warm, fuzzy feeling that all’s right with the world? Well, perhaps not the world outside your walls, but the world which you inhabit inside your walls. And more specifically…the inner spaces of your heart and mind and soul?

With age comes a good deal of reflection. Having attained most, if not all, of the physical wants on our check lists we begin to wonder what is left for us to do while we count down the years until the end. What is there left to do? Have we done it all? Do we feel good about how we’ve lived our lives?

Speaking from my own personal experience, feeling good about things outside of myself only came when I began to feel good about myself. And that only happened when I accepted that what others thought, felt and did was not my responsibility. More importantly, it did not really involve me. Accepting that fact was like having an invisible wall deflect any and all negativity coming my way back onto those from whom it was being generated.

Folks unhappy with their own circumstances tend to blame others for what’s wrong within themselves. Unable to resolve their problems, they want others to do it for them. Even going to extremes as we’ve seen in the case of shooters who opt to commit suicide, whether by their own hand or at the hand of others.

Wallowing in the hate generated by negativity as we see happening with Donald Trump and his followers, blackens the environment like a thick fog of pollution. Rather than succumb to its poison, we should hold strong to the fact that he and they have issues with which they are struggling. Because they cannot think through constructive solutions based upon positive thinking, they find it easier to pass along their problems to the rest of us. They bleed negativity, not caring about the effect they are having on the masses.

That’s how Trump and others like him “feel good”…by feeling bad. It’s what stokes their already smoldering dislike of the unfamiliar and the different. They refuse to flex with the changing environment, preferring to encapsulate their rigid views of how life should be…in stone.

Truly feeling good means accepting that we are basically good. How we react to adversity outside of ourselves determines whether or not we continue to feel good.

Like others, I am disturbed by the constant reminder that many are hell-bent in bringing about Armageddon…sooner rather than later. I’m equally disturbed by the desire of many in the Republican Party that America return to isolationism from the rest of the world. Obviously, neither Armageddon nor isolationism is compatible with the survival of the human race. What separates us from other species is our ability to THINK through alternatives to our problems, arriving at the best one for the good of all, not just a few.

As naïve as this may sound, I strive to remember that each of us is basically good. We didn’t start off as bad babies. What happened after that was dependent upon circumstances, much of which is beyond our control…our birth country…our parent’s economic standing…our education or lack thereof…our jobs…our families, friends, enemies. What we do have control over is how we act and react under these circumstances. Again, however, we cannot over-stress or over-worry about others’ actions and reactions. We can only act and react, striving to do so from a platform of positivity, not negativity.

You know, when people stress one issue, as Trump is now doing, I wonder what they are trying to draw our attention away from. What happened to the issue of poverty in the U.S.? If the U.S. doesn’t do more to relieve poverty and problems with the educational system, we’re going to have to worry about more than Muslims and Mexicans coming into the country. Keeping kids in school and educating them is one way of creating less prejudice and crime. Give strong lessons on history. Why didn’t isolationism work before we came into WWII? Why did the U.S. intern Japanese people during WWII? If we don’t understand history, we repeat mistakes. Are the Muslims or the Mexicans going to be interned next? Can the U.S. actually be isolated in today’s connected and shrinking world?

Another thing is who’s going to be willing to take all the jobs Mexicans and other poor people do in the U.S.? Many of the restaurants would have to close because guess who is working in those kitchens? Guess who’s picking much of the produce in the U.S.? Guess who’s doing other jobs, not many people want to do? Probably some of the people Trump has working in his hotels won’t vote for him. Guess why. I heard on TV he has business affairs in some countries in the Mideast where he’ll no longer be welcome. The Muslim religion is predominant there. —– Suzanne

Trump’s campaign is one of…slogans. No substance. Neither he nor his followers are thinking of how a President Trump is going to carry out all his promises. Whose sons, daughters, husbands, and wives are going to be sacrificed to wiping out ISIS his way? How’s he going to determine who the Muslims are trying to enter the country? If they don’t own up to the fact on their paperwork, how’s he going to know for sure? And who’s going to foot the bill for the wall he’s building between the U.S. and Mexico? Billionaire Trump isn’t nor is he going to ask his wealthy cronies. Voters don’t seem to remember that he’s giving the rich a tax break.

I guess we could go on and on, Suzanne. I can’t wait until he’s ousted from the political scene. Evidently, mainstream Republicans are trying to figure just how to do that. They should have done it long ago, before he gained momentum…and a legion of Tea Party followers. The Tea Partiers in Congress must be rooting for him since it’ll boost their power substantially in 2016.

Oh so true, Huggy. Our choice. We only go through this world once; why waste it choosing to feel bad? The problem with media and social media is that they only dwell on the negative. Negativity sells. Good deeds rarely get mentioned. But we all know thousands of people who do nice things for others all the time. ALL THE TIME. It is those small gestures that cannot help but make us feel good.